Category: Spotted on Shelves

Ben & Jerry’s recently introduced two new flavors to their lineup of creamy creations: the creatively named Mission to Marzipan and the unimaginative Chocolate Macadamia, which a Chunky Monkey armed with a typewriter could’ve named. Both flavors contain nuts in some shape or form.

The Mission to Marzipan flavor is made up of sweet cream ice cream with almond cookies and a Marzipan swirl. Marzipan is a sweet, yellowish paste of ground almonds, sugar, and egg whites. And knowing what it is will impress your foodie friends. The Chocolate Macadamia consists of chocolate and vanilla ice creams with fudge covered macadamia nuts. While Mission to Marzipan has the creative name, the Chocolate Macadamia can brag about the fact that its macadamias, cocoa and vanilla are Fair Trade-certified.

The Mission to Marzipan has 260 calories, 13 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 32 grams of carbs and 25 grams of sugar per 1/2 cup serving. The Chocolate Macadamia has 270 calories, 18 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 25 grams of carbs and 22 grams of sugar per serving.

(You can read a review of the Chocolate Macadamia flavor here.)

I’m not a connoisseur of cheeses, except for Kraft American slices and Velveeta, so I don’t know if I should be impressed with the Wheat Thins Artisan Cheese Crackers that have either Vermont White Cheddar or Wisconsin Colby cheese baked into it. I’m going to assume that the Wisconsin Colby cheese version will be good because if I’ve learned anything from watching Green Bay Packers games, it’s that Wisconsin knows how to make cheese. Or they’re really good at making cheese hats.

These crackers also come in a hexagon shape, instead of the usual Wheat Thins tetragon, which I think was a mistake. They should’ve gone with an octagon to jump on the chiseled, sweaty and bloody back of mixed martial arts.

The Vermont White Cheddar version has 140 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber per 12 cracker serving. The Wisconsin Colby cheese has 130 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 220 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber per serving.

I’m Switzerland when it comes to the war between Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine for freezer aisle supremacy. I’m not picking a side and I’m just watching the whole thing go down with a Totino’s Party Pizza on my lap. They just go back and forth, flinging combinations of ingredients at each other and conquering more and more shelf space, like they’re a bunch of 12-year-olds playing Risk.

Healthy Choice recently launched their All-Natural Entrees line to counteract the new meals from Lean Cuisine. The All-Natural Entrees come in six varieties for your procurement:

Mediterranean Pasta РNine-grain orzo with beans, saut̩ed onions, diced tomatoes, and savory spinach packed with 12 grams of fiber. Topped with a cinnamon sauce, sweet apples, fontina cheese, and cranberries.

Portabella Marsala Pasta – Nine-grain mafalda pasta topped with crimini mushrooms tossed with marsala wine sauce and topped with fontina cheese.

Portabella Spinach Parmesean – Whole-grain penne pasta with baby portabella mushrooms and spinach.

Pumpkin Squash Ravioli – Ravioli stuffed with pumpkin paired with asparagus, butternut squash, and Granny Smith apples. It’s all topped with a butter-sage sauce.

Sweet Asian Potstickers (shown above) – Veggie potstickers served on a whole-grain rice and covered with a sweet Asian-style sauce.

Tomato Basil Penne – Nine-grain penne pasta topped with tomatoes, onions, sweet basil, and mozzarella cheese. Prepared with 100% extra virgin olive oil.

Besides being made from all-natural ingredients, all are high in fiber, low in saturated fat and cholesterol, contain no preservatives or artificial flavors, provide antioxidants and they seem like a gigantic “suck it” to Lean Cuisine.

Not trying to apply pressure in any way, but some of these will probably be reviewed by Heat Eat Review in the future.

(via I Ate A Pie)

Lean Cuisine frozen meals reproduce at a rate that would cause rabbits to be appalled. The chefs at Lean Cuisine recently helped give birth to four new flavors of their frozen meals that appeal to dieting women, people who can’t boil water and the folks who run frozen/microwaveable food review blogs. The new varieties are:

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto Chicken – Tender white meat chicken with cavatappi pasta, zucchini, black olives and Parmesan cheese tossed in a sun-dried tomato pesto sauce. (290 calories and 9 grams of fat.)

Pasta Romano with Bacon – Delicate bow tie pasta in a flavorful fire roasted tomato sauce with smoky bacon and topped with Romano cheese. (280 calories and 7 grams of fat.)

Linguine Carbonara Linguine – Pasta with savory bits of bacon, flavorful red and green peppers, peas and basil, all tossed in a creamy Parmesan sauce. (300 calories and 8 grams of fat.)

Beef Chow Fun – Tender strips of beef over bed of flat noodles with snap peas, red peppers and water chestnuts tossed in a sweet and spicy Asian-style sauce. (320 calories and 5 grams of fat.)

All of them should be available now at your local grocery store in the frozen food aisle with the 50-something other Lean Cuisine meals.

Yoplait yogurt comes in so many flavors that you could probably rewrite Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” with nothing but Yoplait yogurt flavors.

Don’t believe me. Below is a list of almost all the flavors. Have at it.

Cherry Orchard, Banana Crème, Tropical Peach, Mango, Dulce de Leche, Blackberry Harvest Boysenberry, Coconut Cream Pie, French Vanilla, Red Raspberry, Harvest Peach, Very Cherry, Guava, Blueberry Patch, Passion Fruit, Piña Colada, Strawberry, Strawberry Banana, Strawberry Cheesecake, Strawberry Kiwi, Strawberry Mango, White Chocolate Raspberry, Apple Turnover, Apricot Mango, Banana Cream Pie, Berries ‘N Cream, Blackberry, Boston Cream Pie, Lemon Cream Pie, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Raspberry Cheesecake, Red Raspberry, Strawberries ‘N Bananas, Strawberry Orange Sunrise, Strawberry Shortcake, Very Vanilla, White Chocolate Strawberry, Chocolate, Chocolate Raspberry, Lemon Meringue, Peaches ‘N Cream, Raspberry Mousse, Key Lime Pie, Mountain Blueberry, Mixed Berry, Pineapple, Strawberry Mist, Orange Crème, and Lemon Burst.

Also, don’t forget to add Yoplait’s three newest flavors — Cherry Pomegranate, Blackberry Pomegranate and Blueberry Acai — all of which contain a superfruit that’s high in nutrients, antioxidants and farmer’s market cred. All three flavors are available now at your favorite grocery store with all of the other dozens of Yoplait varieties for the suggested retail price of 72 cents.